What the History Holos Leave Out
by Mithostwen
Summary: A series of KotOR I shorts exploring what makes the Ebon Hawk's dysfunctional crew tick… and more surprisingly, work. Expands on some familiar scenes and adds some original ones as well. FemRevan's POV.
1. More Than Dumb Luck

**What the History Holos Leave Out**

**By Mithostwen**

**Author's Note:** I've left Revan's appearance up to you, but I decided to include a name for her programmed identity (Skye) so that I don't have to dance around it later when the distinction between her and Revan matters. I figure it happens often enough in KotOR fics that it's not a big deal, but if it really annoys you, you can always just copy this story into a Word document and change her name to whatever you like. :-)

**Disclaimer:** If KotOR was mine, I'd be posting this on fictionpress.

**Escape Pod/Taris - More Than Dumb Luck**

* * *

"It's Onasi, right?"

The soldier sitting knee to knee with me in the cramped escape pod only flicked a quick glance in my direction, as if he'd momentarily forgotten I was there.

"Yeah," he finally said, before turning back to the blank interior wall. I tried not to take offense that he found it more enthralling than me. To be fair, I was only talking to take my mind off our situation, and the adrenaline still pumping madly through my system wasn't doing wonders for my conversational skills. Neither was the fact that a decent portion of our crew had just died—including my bunkmate, who had sacrificed himself to give me the chance to escape despite the fact that we'd only just met. That kind of selflessness was seriously impressive, but it only made me more determined than ever not to die today.

"Is this your first crash landing in an escape pod?" I asked.

This time when Onasi looked my way, he stared. I couldn't tell from his raised eyebrows whether he thought I was crazy or just stupid for making small talk as we rocketed through space in a metal bucket, but he was kind enough to humor me.

"Unfortunately, no. Why do you ask?"

"I was just wondering if there was any way to steer this thing, or if we're at the mercy of fate."

The raised eyebrows lowered again. I optimistically took that to mean he was reevaluating his previous assessment of my sanity and/or intelligence.

"You don't believe in the Force," he surmised.

I just shrugged, which was easier said than done in the restrictive safety harness.

"Sure I do. But either way, it's just another name for the same thing."

He was silent for a moment, maybe processing that, maybe ignoring me.

"No, there aren't any controls," he said at last. "But these things are pretty sturdy and they come equipped with energy suppressors, which are supposed to lessen the impact."

"_Supposed_ to?"

I was beginning to regret that I'd asked.

"Oh, they help," he assured me, at the same moment the pod began shaking more violently. We were picking up speed. "But that doesn't mean it isn't going to hurt when we crash."

"Wonderful."

I let my head smack into my palms, massaging temples that hopefully wouldn't be shattered within the next few minutes. I was grateful that this stranger had elected to jeopardize his own life rather than leave a soldier behind. I truly was. I knew my chances of survival were infinitely better in this escape pod than back on the empty ship that was probably being blown to pieces as we spoke. But I still found it difficult to summon the proper gratitude. What I mostly felt was dread.

"So what happens _after _we crash?" I asked through my fingers.

"Do you always ask this many questions?"

I couldn't tell from his tone whether he was amused or annoyed, so I straightened up and tried to be more professional.

"Not if you have a problem with it, sir."

He opened his mouth to say something, but I never found out what it was, because we smashed into the permacrete a second later.

After that, I don't remember a thing.

* * *

Waking up felt like coming out of a coma after having been trampled by a herd of banthas. Underwater. Not that I was speaking from experience—as far as I knew. Force, what had happened to me?

I tried to think back, but the strangely vivid dream I'd just been having about a Jedi and a Dark Jedi trying to cut each other to ribbons was stuck in my head, and it was hard to remember what had happened before that. Probably not an underwater bantha stampede, then. I was pretty sure something like that would have stuck.

I sat up, ignoring the fact that this made my vision swim, and tried to take in my surroundings.

I froze when my eyes fell on the handsome stranger watching me.

"Good to see you up, instead of thrashing around in your sleep," he said seriously. "You must have been having one hell of a nightmare. I was wondering if you were ever going to wake up."

Was that supposed to be _reassuring_? Why had he been watching me sleep? And more importantly, who the hell _was_ he? I didn't like the implications of him talking to me as if we were friends, considering I hadn't a clue how I'd ended up in his apartment. He did looked vaguely familiar, but not familiar enough for comfort. I tried again to remember how I'd gotten here, but I still couldn't place him.

Fortunately, he seemed to sense my confusion and came to my rescue.

"I'm Carth, one of the Republic soldiers from the _Endar Spire_. I was with you on the escape pod. Do you remember?"

_Ohhh…._

I breathed an audible sigh of relief.

Carth Onasi, from the personal communicator. Orange jacket, uncooperative hair. Carth Onasi, who needed to work on his pep talks, and thought I asked too many questions. Apparently we were on a first-name basis now. That was fine by me, now that I knew I hadn't been picked up by some random stranger.

Admittedly, I didn't really know Carth either, but he had waited on the dying ship for me instead of taking the last escape pod for himself. Like Trask's sacrifice, that said a lot about his character. Besides, he was a soldier, and a soldier on a ship that seemed to be chock full of unusually selfless people.

I already trusted him. Maybe that was stupid, but my gut feelings were usually pretty reliable, and my gut said Carth was a decent guy. It also said I was half-starved, but I tried to ignore that fact for now.

"Right, I remember," I said, because I had to say _something_ to prove I was lucid. "I'm Skye, by the way. So… how did we get here?"

Since there wasn't an escape-pod-sized hole in the ceiling, the gap in my memory between crashing and waking up in this bed was still something of a mystery.

"Well, you've been slipping in and out of consciousness for a couple of days now, so I imagine you're pretty confused about things. Try not to worry. We're safe… at least for the moment."

Again with the pessimistic pep talks. I appreciated his honesty, but would it have killed him to leave it at "we're safe"?

Carth proceeded to tell me how he'd stumbled across this abandoned apartment after dragging me away from the crash site, and that the planet—Taris—was under Sith quarantine. He said he'd been in worse spots, which I supposed was comforting, but not nearly enough for my peace of mind. If he was right, we were stranded down here, out of reach of the rest of the Republic fleet. That meant we were on our own—and so was Bastila.

Carth was clearly determined to find her, and he wasn't going to get any argument from me. If she was really as important to the Republic war effort as he claimed, we'd be guaranteeing victory for the Sith if we didn't try.

Besides, I owed him my life. The least I could do was help him out.

"Any idea where we should start looking for Bastila?" I asked.

"While you were out I did some scouting around. There are reports of a couple escape pods crashing down into the Undercity. That's probably a good place to start. But the Undercity is a dangerous place. We don't want to go in there unprepared. It won't do Bastila any good if we go and get ourselves killed."

"Don't worry, I wasn't planning on it," I said, trying to lighten the mood a little. This guy was as serious as a plague. "So let's get started, shall we? The sooner we start looking for Bastila, the sooner we find her."

"Good idea," he agreed. "We can use this abandoned apartment as a base, and we can probably get some equipment and supplies here in the Upper City. Just remember to keep a low profile. I've heard some grim stories about the Dark Jedi interrogation techniques. They say the Force can do terrible things to a mind. It can wipe away your memories and destroy your very identity."

That sounded an awful lot like Sith propaganda to keep people scared, but I diplomatically chose not to argue. I liked Carth, and for all I knew, there could be some truth to what he was saying. If even half of the stories were true, the Jedi could perform some pretty incredible feats that couldn't be explained unless the Force was more than a fancy name for fate. And maybe it was. I just wasn't going to believe it until I saw it.

Carth noted my lack of concern or awe, and quickly changed the subject.

"But I figure if we don't do anything stupid, we should be okay," he said, probably recalling our last conversation about the Force, like I was. "I mean, after all, they're… they're looking for Bastila, not a couple of grunts like us. All right, soldier. Let's move out!"

I raised an eyebrow, amused.

"What was that about keeping a low profile?"

"Sorry. You're right. I should probably drop the military routine. Old habits, you know."

He shrugged, which drew my attention to the horrible orange jacket he was still wearing… and started the gears in my head turning. Maybe Carth wasn't big on questions, but there were other ways to get to know people. Time to try a little experiment…

"Well, at least we don't have to worry about finding you a disguise," I said casually, nodding at the offending jacket. "No one will ever take you for a self-respecting Republic soldier in _that_."

"Hey, easy on the insults, sister," he said, looking mock-offended. "You don't see me criticizing your… bizarre half-leather get-up. Besides, it's not _that_ bad, is it?"

So he _did _have a sense of humor. I bit back a grin, keeping my face stoically straight.

"This happens to be a standard-issue jumpsuit," I informed him matter-of-factly. "And yes, it _is_ that bad."

"Hey, I didn't _have _to drag you away from that crash site, you know. And I could still take you back. Then you can try your hand at making pals with the Sith by criticizing _their_ uniforms. I'd love to see how well that goes over."

Damn. And here I'd actually been worried I was in for the long haul with one of those uptight, I'd-die-before-I-cracked-a-joke types. Carth was a natural at this. He might actually give _me_ a run for my money.

My hopes for this partnership were getting brighter by the minute.

"Okay, the jacket is only _mildly _horrible," I compromised. "Is that better?"

His only response was to raise one eyebrow.

"Fine. Mildly irritating."

"I guess I can live with that," he said, finally cracking a grin—the first one I'd seen from him since we'd met.

It was a good thing, too, because if my heart was going to react like that every time he smiled at me, I was going to need a transplant before the week was out.

_Get a grip_, I chided myself. So Carth was fun to banter with and easy on the eyes. Big deal. I could say the same of plenty of other men, even if you threw in the part about him saving my life. (After all, I was a soldier. Getting shot at was part of the job description.) It was probably just the combination of having survived a horrible ordeal and being alone with him that was getting to me.

Which was all the more reason to get out there and start looking for Bastila ASAP.

But first things first. I was famished, and I wasn't going to be much use to anyone if I passed out from hunger in the streets. I doubted Carth would appreciate having to drag me everywhere we went.

"Come on, let's find some food," I said, rising and shouldering my pack. "It'll be a good warm-up for finding our lost Jedi."

As it turned out, it was considerably more than that. Our search for food led us to the cantina, where my sorely underestimated skills at "making pals with the Sith" were directly responsible for getting us to the Lower City... where we just happened to get mixed up in a gang rivalry against the very people who were holding Bastila captive.

That was when I first began to suspect the Force might be more than dumb luck after all.

* * *

**To be continued…**

* * *

**Another Note: **A lot of the credit for the existence of this story has to go to blackberet, since "Downtime" was a big part of the inspiration behind it. I finally have a computer that can run KotOR again, and obviously this story was inspired by the game, but I wouldn't have been in the frame of mind to pull this little series out of it if I hadn't already been reading blackberet's story. You should check it out, whether or not you're enjoying mine. And I'm not just saying that. It's really that good.


	2. The Mysterious Stranger & Handsome Thug

First off, I want to apologize for the long silence, and for any future ones as well. I've just uprooted myself and flown halfway around the world to study in Australia for the semester, which means my classes will begin near the end of July. It's hard to predict how much time I'll have to write, but the fact that I've already got nine chapters of this story in the works means it's not entirely hopeless. It just means it'll be hard to predict when I'll update. I'm really sorry about this, but thanks for bearing with me, and I hope you enjoy this chapter.

**A/N:** This takes place a few days after the crash. Carth and Revan/Skye have learned from Brejik where Bastila is being held, but they have yet to head down to the Undercity to look for Mission. In the meantime, Skye is looking to win them some more credits…

**Disclaimer:** KotOR is still not mine.

**Taris – The Mysterious Stranger and the Handsome Thug**

* * *

"I don't think you should do it."

I looked up from jabbing a medpac into my leg to find Carth frowning down at me. He didn't elaborate.

"Any particular reason?" I asked, maybe a little petulantly. "You didn't have an issue with my first two duels."

"Yeah, well, those guys were pushovers. Ice isn't."

"How sweet. Are you actually worried about me now?" I let the implications of that comment go unsaid—that someone who thought I had sabotaged the _Endar Spire_ shouldn't care whether I picked a fight with a bully I couldn't handle.

The deepening of Carth's frown proved he'd caught my drift. I wasn't surprised. We were getting to know each other pretty well—which was kind of a shame, actually. Carth had been a lot more fun before I started trying to figure him out. His past was evidently full of land mines, and he preferred to set up a wide perimeter around them and put up a sign that said "Keep Out" before I could even get close enough to find out where they lay. All I'd managed to gather so far was that he trusted me about as much as he trusted the Sith, which I wasn't supposed to take personally, and it probably had something to do with Telos, seeing as he didn't want to talk about that either. Or maybe he just didn't want to talk to me, period. Either way, I was pretty sure I could be excused for being a little skeptical of any concern he expressed for my wellbeing.

"I just think it's an unnecessary risk," he said at last, as if there'd been no sarcastic barb to my question at all. "You're going to get yourself killed."

I shook my head and tossed the used medpac into the nearest garbage unit.

"Energy suppressors, remember? The worst I'll end up with is a few bruises, maybe some minor broken bones. If it was possible to die in that ring, Duncan would have pulled it off by now, trust me."

Belatedly, it occurred to me to glance around and make sure the infamous Dead-eye Duncan wasn't within earshot. He wasn't. The Force was still on my side, unlike a certain Republic soldier.

"Give me a little credit here," Carth said. Judging by the sour look on his face, his patience was wearing about as thin as mine. "I was there when you talked to Bendak Starkiller, and I can put two and two together. You're working up to a death match, aren't you?"

"No," I said truthfully. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm not big on homicide, even with a contract." Didn't he remember all the trouble I'd went to in order to fake Matrik's death rather than kill him?

"No, I know. But Bendak's criminal record is a lot more extensive than just owing Davik money. He's killed hundreds of people. He actually _deserves_ the bounty on his head, and I thought… I thought you might make an exception."

The look on Carth's face was entirely unreadable. I wished I had Jedi mind-reading powers so I'd know what that undercurrent of intensity in his voice was all about.

But I knew better than to start prying now. If we were going to rescue Bastila from the Vulkars and make it off this planet alive, we had to work together, and I wasn't so blinded by my resentment that I didn't recognize when _I_ was the bigger barrier to keeping the all-important peace.

I sighed, stooping and tightening my new civilian boots as an excuse to avert my eyes.

If I was honest with myself, I knew Carth probably meant well with his concerns for my safety. And I'd been nothing but sarcastic—okay, maybe downright hostile— in return. He didn't deserve that, overly paranoid or no. After all, if he could put aside his suspicions that I was a Sith spy, the least I could do was try to forget that he'd all but accused me of being one.

"I know I'm a soldier," I said at last. "There's plenty of blood on my hands. But I'm no one's executioner. I'm not going to fight Bendak, even if he's all for it."

Carth searched my eyes for a long moment, no doubt looking for signs that I was lying. And for once, I simply let him. No snide comment, no quirked eyebrow, no unreadable sabacc face. It was my way of making up for being such a schutta earlier.

Besides, I wanted him to trust me, which was why it stung so much that he didn't.

"All right," he said, evidently making up his mind that I was telling the truth. "In that case, I guess I should be wishing you good luck." He nodded toward Ice, who was dispassionately polishing her vibrosword and ignoring all the mere mortals in the room, as per usual.

"Thanks," I said, allowing myself a small grimace as I followed his gaze. "I don't suppose she'll warm up to me any more if I beat her, will she? No pun intended."

I watched Carth out of the corner of my eye, waiting for a disparaging shake of his head, maybe a sympathy chuckle—some sign that our fragile peace had been restored and it was safe to joke around again.

To my relief, it came, in the form of a faint, crooked smile.

"No, I doubt it," he said, the playful glint that had been missing from his eyes finally reappearing. "But I think you're getting a little ahead of yourself. You still need to win the duel."

I put on a good show of looking hurt, knowing he wouldn't buy it.

"Don't you have any faith in my fighting abilities whatsoever?"

"If I didn't, I wouldn't be betting our lunch credits on you winning, would I?" he said, playing along. I'd forgotten just how good it felt to trade pointless jabs with him. It was almost like day one again, when he'd laughingly dared me to throw my worst insult at him… and called me beautiful. The only difference was that now I knew what was _really_ running through his mind all that time, buried under all the light-hearted teasing: a deep-seated mistrust.

Except when it came to my abilities. Those, he never doubted. Carth might not have trusted me to do the right thing, but he knew he could count on me to accomplish just about anything I put my mind to. It made for an odd sort of alliance—the kind that probably only works when both parties have no other choice, which we didn't. But even when I could feel him watching my every move, scrutinizing me for ulterior motives, I got the sense that Carth was waiting for me to prove him wrong. Maybe he wanted to trust me, and it was just going to take some time.

It was a long shot, but luckily for him, I was a firm believer in second chances. And third chances. I had to believe there was hope for us yet— if not as friends, then at least as a team that wasn't so dysfunctional it prevented us from saving Bastila. And for the first time in days, it was looking like my hope might not be unfounded.

"What are you waiting around for?" Carth asked, jarring me out of my introspection. "Get out there and prove I'm a smart gambler. I have a reputation to maintain here."

The sheer absurdity of the comment sliced through the tension like a lightsaber through flimsiplast.

"You?" I laughed. "_I'm_ the Mysterious Stranger. You're just my sidekick."

"Sidekick?" His eyebrows shot up, and for a second I thought I'd actually rendered him speechless— or worse, offended him just when things were starting to look up. But he recovered like a pro.

"You may be the celebrity, but I still outrank you in the real world," he reminded me. "I can have you stationed on some backwater planet for the rest of your life where the only audience for your wit will be womp rats and gundarks."

"You would miss me too much," I said, though I doubted he actually would. "Come on, admit it. You find my irreverent humor charming."

"You're right. My life would be meaningless without any subordinates who have the cheek to call me a lobotomized gamorrean to my face."

I shrugged, and may or may not have given him an evil grin as well.

"Hey, you asked for it."

"I did," he conceded, returning the smile. "Now are we going to stand around chatting all day, or are you going to make yourself useful and go humiliate another professional duelist?"

Again with the "let's get back to the task at hand" attitude. It was his answer to _everything_. But I found I didn't mind so much this time.

"Fine, but only if you buy me lunch," I said, glancing back at him over my shoulder as I marched across the room to my favorite slimy, half-ton duel manager. "And it had better be someplace nice! With any luck we'll be dining in the Undercity tonight."

It had become a running joke to fight over who paid for meals, since we were living off of the same tiny pool of credits. Somehow it never got old.

"On one condition," Carth called back. "You have to come up with a better nickname for me."

"Done," I agreed. "But I get to define 'better.'"

I heard him mutter a few curses, but he didn't go back on his word. He was a decent guy, Carth Onasi. It was a shame he'd been betrayed sometime in his undisclosed past. It was hard to imagine he could have done anything to deserve it.

Maybe I _would_ give him a less derisive nickname. Eventually.

If Ajuur noticed my wicked smile, he probably chalked it up to some sort of sadistic anticipation for kicking the snot out of my next opponent. I didn't care. There was only one person in the room whose opinion mattered to me.

"I'm ready for my next duel," I told the hutt.

And five minutes later I was sauntering back over to Carth, waving a handful of credits. Well, sauntering as well as I could while favoring my right arm and injecting another medpac into my leg. I didn't think I'd broken anything, but Carth had been right to worry. I only won by a narrow margin.

"You're a mess," he said, taking in my haggard appearance. "I can't take you anywhere nice like that. You'll scare away all the respectable patrons."

"Good. They could use a reminder what life is like for the millions of people on this planet who actually have to work for their money."

Carth shook his head, trying and failing to repress a smile.

"Yeah, well, I think it might be best if we save the reminders for another time."

"You promised," I said, swaying a little. He reached out to steady me, and I didn't protest. I found his eyes and blinked until they came back into focus. "A deal's a deal."

"If you get to define a 'better' nickname, I get to define a 'nice' restaurant," he said.

Blast. I had to give him that one.

"All right. Lead the way… meatbag."

"You must be in worse shape than I thought if that's the best you can come up with," Carth said, giving me another once-over as we wound our way back through the cantina. I had swallowed my pride and accepted his offer to let me hang onto his arm, which was another sign of how beat I was. But I'd used up our last medpac, so I didn't really have another choice until we could restock at the medcenter or Kebla's shop.

"I was trying to be nice," I said, wrenching my attention away from my aching limbs for a moment. "Or would you prefer something along the lines of 'slag-sucking space slug'? 'Sexless marsh-toad,' perhaps? I've got more."

He laughed.

"Where did you learn all of these?"

"The playground, mostly. My co-workers tended to curse in alien languages, so you wouldn't understand most of my more sophisticated insults."

"I think you're bluffing. I don't think you've got anything more sophisticated."

"Ouch. Well, you'll never know, will you, _sleemo_?"

"Okay, I know _that _one."

"How about _di'kut_?"

"No, you've got me there."

"_Stoopa_?"

We spent the rest of the walk to the medcenter testing Carth's knowledge of alien insults—and most of the walk to Javyar's Cantina as well. (It had better prices than the one in the Upper City.) Amidst all that brainstorming, it never once occurred to me to wonder where I'd picked up the relatively bland term "meatbag."

If I'd remembered, we would have been having a very different conversation.

* * *

**To be continued…**

* * *

As you can tell, Carth will probably be getting more than his fair share of screen time. What can I say? I'm biased. But there will be plenty of other chapters that focus on the other characters as well, once Revan starts picking them up.


	3. Mission Impossible

**A/N: **This chapter is going to be a little different than the previous two. Firstly, our heroes will actually be doing something more productive than sitting around trading witty remarks and getting to know each other, so maybe that's a plus. It certainly makes the stakes higher, if nothing else. And secondly, Mission and Zaalbar are making their debut.

**Disclaimer:** Still not mine. Also, I apologize for the horribly punny title, which isn't mine either.

**Taris – Mission Impossible**

* * *

Mission wasn't exaggerating when she warned me that the rancor in the Undercity sewers was going to be tough to handle. In fact, I was pretty sure I could rightfully accuse her of understating exactly how impossible it was going to be to get all of us past the thing alive. Maybe if Zaalbar was a couple tons bigger, and Carth was Darth Malak, and Mission and I were both armed to the teeth with thermal detonators and rocket launchers, maybe _then_ we'd have a fighting chance. But this? This looked an awful lot like suicide.

I glanced over at my companions and wasn't surprised to see Carth looking grim. No doubt he'd sized up the monster and come to the same conclusion I had. Zaalbar was as unreadable as always, but Mission actually looked oddly confident. She met my gaze squarely, the only question in her eyes a simple "so how do you want to handle this?"

I would have thought she was crazy, except that her blue fingered death-grip on the blaster I'd given her belied her pretense of calm.

That was perhaps even _more_ worrisome than the girl not having a healthy respect for the danger we were in. If she was terrified and still willing to rush headlong into mortal peril, that spoke volumes about the amount of trust she was willing to put in others to keep her alive. I guess I couldn't blame her, since Zaalbar had always pulled through for her, and Carth and I had categorically decimated all the rakghouls and gamorreans we'd run across down here, but someone had to break it to her that we weren't infallible simply because we were more experienced with this kind of thing.

Don't get me wrong; I was touched that Mission was so willing to leave her life in my hands. I just wasn't sure I wanted that responsibility—that kind of blind trust. Not from _anyone_, let alone a fourteen-year-old girl.

But what could I do? It was either go on or give up, and for some unfathomable reason, they were all looking to me to decide.

"Are we sure we want to go through with this?" I finally asked, looking at each member of my entourage in turn.

Mission and Carth both nodded at the same time, and Zaalbar rumbled a reminder that he'd sworn a life-debt to me, which he wasn't about to break.

"I know, but there's a difference between honoring your life-debt and throwing your life away," I said in Shyriiwook.

"What, don't you have a plan?" Mission cut in, shooting me a worried look. Did she have to use Basic? Now Carth was looking uneasy too. And in a situation like this, a loss of confidence could be fatal.

"Not a plan that will guarantee everyone's safety, no," I said honestly, switching back to Basic for Carth's benefit. "Some of us are going to have to distract the rancor while the others make a break for that door at the far end, and the ones who do the distracting will probably have to stay behind and leave the sewers the way we came. It's either that or we all start lobbing grenades and hope we can do enough damage to incapacitate it for a moment so that we can all make a break for it together."

I didn't mention the third option, which was of course for one of us to deliberately get caught so that the rest of us could sneak past while the rancor was busy eating. I didn't know why the morbid thought had even occurred to me. Nobody was dying today, even if it gave us the best shot at success. Not on _my_ orders.

I quashed my guilt down before any trace of it could register on my face.

If this mission had taught me anything, it was that I was glad I wasn't a commanding officer. Hopefully it would be a long, long time—if ever—before I learned what it was like to look someone in the eye and tell them to go out and give their life for the sake of victory. There were some things in life it was better not to know.

"So what do you think?" I asked my troupe, glad that they had no idea what thoughts were running through my head.

"Well, I'm not too wild about splitting up, but I like our chances better with Plan A," Carth said.

"Yeah, me too," Mission chimed in, sounding relieved. Zaalbar didn't object, so I took that as tacit agreement.

And in truth, I was relieved too. Their consensus made me feel less like I'd been saddled with a whole heap of responsibility I didn't deserve.

"All right, Plan A it is," I agreed. "So who wants to play decoy?"

"It's your call," Carth said at once. And once again, Mission and Zaalbar followed his lead. Three pairs of eyes locked onto mine, simply waiting.

Blast. I'd been hoping I wouldn't have to be the one to say it, but... there was only one arrangement that really made sense. My original plan had been to split the group in half, but the more I'd thought about it, the less confident I'd become that two of us—_any_ two of us— would be able to handle whatever we found in the base. For all we knew, there could be fifty, even a hundred Vulkars in there. And whoever was going back was going to have a clear run, so…

"Mission, Zaalbar, and I should be the ones to infiltrate the Vulkar base," I said at last. "I need Mission's security skills and Zaalbar's intimidation factor, in case we need to scare information out of anyone. Carth can keep the rancor busy and then meet us back at the Bek base when we're finished."

I addressed all of them in third-person, but I was looking at Carth the whole time. Despite what he'd said about it being my call, I wasn't sure he'd really let me order him to sit this one out. Taking the co-pilot's seat so that he could keep a closer eye on me was one thing, but handing me the ignition codes and hopping out of the ship entirely? That required a lot more trust, and I wasn't at all confident we'd reached that point.

I waited for Carth to object—to tell me that this whole mission was his idea, and if anyone should be sidelined playing decoy, it should be the uppity little rookie, not him.

But he surprised me.

"Okay," he said. "How do you want to do this?"

"Well," I said, recovering as quickly as I could, "have we still got that synthesized odor that's supposed to attract the rancor?"

"Yeah, right here," Mission said, holding up the vial.

Carth took it from her.

"I think I know what you have in mind," he said to me, just a hint of a wry grin flitting across his face.

"Are you sure you want to—"

"I'm sure," he said before I could even finish, all seriousness again. "I'm not giving up on Bastila just because the going's getting a little rough. I'm seeing this through."

In my book, baiting a rancor the size of a house was a far cry from 'a little' rough, but I reminded myself once again that Carth wasn't as new at this whole fighting-for-your-life thing as I was. And if he thought things weren't all that bad, I was going to be grateful they weren't worse.

"All right, then here's how we're going to do it," I said, letting out a huff of breath. "Zaalbar, Mission, and I will quietly make our way over to the far corner at this end of the room, and when I give you the signal, break open the vial. Then, with any luck, all hell will break loose and the rancor will come charging at you. Take these grenades—" I unbuckled my pack and started shoveling them at him until he had at least enough to blow up the entire room "—and blast the flaming thing to smithereens."

He smirked, staring down at his armful of explosives.

"Subtle."

"It's a rancor. It wouldn't know subtle if it clobbered it in the face."

"I don't think you're quite grasping the meaning of the word 'subtle' here."

I gave him one of my signature eye-rolls, since elbowing or hitting him under the present circumstances might mean a fiery death for all four of us.

"Shutting up now," he said, giving me an eye-roll of his own. I couldn't remember him doing that before, and wondered if he'd actually picked it up from me.

"So… not to interrupt or anything, but what do _we_ do?" Mission asked. I turned, and saw that the fear she'd been keeping under wraps had finally crept into her wide brown eyes. "You know, when it attacks Carth?"

"We run, so that he doesn't have to stick around throwing grenades any longer than necessary. And he won't, _will_ he?" I said more forcefully, looking Carth straight in the eye. "No playing hero."

"Wouldn't dream of it," he said. "I've never been the type."

I would have had to be a blind orkellian cave slug to believe that line, seeing as he'd already proven he was _exactly _that type a dozen times over since the day he'd rescued me on the _Spire_. But in this case, the lie was only meant as reassurance. I hoped.

I let my narrowed eyes tell him exactly how much trouble he'd be in if he went back on his word, and proceeded with the briefing.

"Good. Now let's see… Mission, Zaalbar, you're going to want to keep your weapons handy for when we reach the base, but I don't want you to shoot at the rancor unless someone's about to get eaten. Our best hope is that it won't ever notice we're here, but our second best is that it'll forget all about us once Carth breaks that vial, and shooting is only going to draw its attention. Got it?"

They nodded mutely.

"All right. Well, in that case, let's get moving," I said. I couldn't think of anything else to say, barring a horrible attempt at an inspirational speech. "I'll lead the way, but stick close."

"'Kay," Mission said softly, forming up behind me. Zaalbar followed, and carefully, very carefully, we tiptoed out into the open. The rancor didn't turn, or show any sign of hearing us at all—until we passed the massive pile of half-eaten corpses and Zaalbar gave a soft, involuntary moan of distaste. Or maybe sadness. I was inclined to think it was due to the smell of rotting flesh, which was no doubt even more potent for him than for us, but I didn't have much of a chance to figure it out.

The rancor had detected us, as evidenced by its sudden roar, and its earth-shaking footsteps were rapidly coming our way.

_Blast, blast, blast!_

"Carth!" I yelled, taking off at a sprint and dragging Mission with me. "_Now_!"

The massive creature was charging straight at us, its claws outstretched and its skull-crushing jaws wide open. Like I'd said, the antithesis of subtlety—not that I ought to have been worrying about that right then. We reached the wall and I shoved Mission up against it, looking up just in time to see the monster bearing down on us.

_Force, don't let us have come all this way just to die…_

Zaalbar roared, a vain challenge at best, and I forced myself to resist the overwhelming urge to grab Mission's blaster and start pumping bolts into the beast's face. The skin was too thick. I knew that. But the rancor was close enough now that I could see the drool dripping from its teeth as it prepared to lunge… and the look in its beady eyes when a flying grenade exploded less than a meter from its skull. The creature's monstrous head whipped around, and it made a beeline for the man who had just become my favorite person in the universe.

I decided right then and there that I would never give him a hard time about his jacket again.

"Come on!" Mission hissed in my ear. This time _she_ did the dragging, and the three of us ran for the far door like it was the gateway to Rukil's promised land. I desperately hoped it wasn't, because otherwise I'd just sentenced a whole village to their deaths, but something told me my panicked brain was just taking the metaphor too far.

The sound of exploding grenades made the whole chamber ring with deafening echoes, but I didn't mind. As long as they kept coming, it meant Carth was still alive.

Mission and I reached the door first, and as soon as she let go of me, I turned back around to see how my fellow soldier was faring. I couldn't see him, but as I watched, another grenade came flying out of the hallway we'd come from, exploding on the rancor's shoulder and eliciting another roar. The monster clawed its way as far as it could into the tiny doorway where Carth had retreated, but hopefully it couldn't reach him.

"We made it, Carth! Now get out of here!" I bellowed, hoping he could hear me over the sound of the rancor's incessant growling and roaring. We hadn't agreed on a signal for this part, which was beginning to look like a major hitch in the plan.

"Here," Mission said, seizing my pack and rummaging around until she found what she was looking for. It wasn't a grenade, as I'd expected, but a mine.

My blood froze. She wouldn't.

"What are you—?" was all I had time to splutter before she took off running. "MISSION! Mission, come back!"

Zaalbar roared, and we both started after her, but it was just then that the door we'd been standing outside cycled open, revealing a welcoming party of Black Vulkars with blasters. No doubt they'd heard all the racket we were making.

Now I knew what Carth meant when he said the rancor was only a minor problem. This was getting ridiculous.

A blaster bolt skimmed my head close enough to singe my hair, and I flicked on my energy shield before someone else got a luckier shot. Then I whipped out my vibrosword and charged the closest Vulkar. I didn't ask Zaalbar to help me, but he did anyway, and I knew better than to try to change his mind. Wookiees took their life-debts seriously, and as I ducked blaster bolts and cut down gang members, all I could do was hope desperately that his loyalty to me didn't get his best friend killed.

She would be appalled if she knew how worried I was about her. I could just see her indignant pout as she insisted she could take care of herself just fine.

But I also kept flashing back to the way she'd gripped that blaster for dear life, and the flash of fear in her eyes when she asked about her part in the plan.

None of us were immortal. It was an unfortunate truth, and one I was continually reminded of by every enemy who fell to Zaalbar's bowcaster or my blade.

The last Vulkar's dying groan was just tapering off when another explosion left my ears ringing. This one had sounded closer, not muffled like the last several blasts.

_Mission._

My heart, which had been racing like a maniac up until this point, nearly stopped.

Zaalbar and I both spun around, and in the longest second of my life, I had plenty of time to wonder which of us felt more dread: the Wookiee who had been like family to Mission for years, or the human who knew full well that she was to blame if the teenage Twi'lek died.

Fortunately, we didn't have to find out which of us would feel more grief.

"Yeah! Take that!" Mission's sing-song voice called out as the rancor roared and stumbled toward her, favoring the foot that had evidently triggered her mine while it was busy failing to eat Carth. But she wasn't stupid, and she didn't wait around for it to recover and tear her head off. She sprinted back across the room to us, and another well-aimed grenade from Carth—who was now clearly visible in the doorway— was all it took to finally bring the monster down.

The echoes from its final roar slowly died, and the four of us just stood there, blinking at the thing as if it would come back to life at any moment.

"Looks like Carth got my message all right," Mission said at last, still sounding a little dazed.

"I think half of Taris did," I said weakly, still too filled with relief to chew her out for being so reckless. Besides, I was kind of proud of her for thinking on her feet like that, and having the guts to prime an explosive device right next to a rancor that could have used her for a toothpick. After a moment of deliberation, I decided a little praise was in order. After all, there was no telling whether I would have done something even _more_ stupid if I'd thought Carth was about to become rancor chow—a possibility she'd single-handedly prevented.

"I have to admit that was pretty resourceful. Nice work, Mish," I said, the nickname falling into place of its own accord. I clapped her on the back.

"Mish?" she repeated, her head whipping around so fast that her lekku flew out like pinwheels and nearly smacked me.

"Hey, it's better than 'kid,' right?" Carth pointed out, finally joining us. He was covered in dust and grit that had probably once been part of a wall, but other than that, he appeared to be fine.

"No, it's not that," Mission said quickly. "It's just… that's what Griff used to call me."

_Oh._

The high from defeating the rancor dissipated fast.

"I can call you something else," I started to say, but she waved away my apology.

"Don't worry about it. I've kind of missed it, to be honest. Big Z isn't big on nicknames."

Carth and I exchanged a glance, but neither of us commented on the glaringly obvious inconsistency in that statement. No doubt Zaalbar just put up with her pet names the same way he put up with her attempts to make him practice proper hygiene.

I filed away a mental note not to call him "Big Z" and let it slide.

After all, we had bigger things to worry about. The rancor had only been round one. Now we had a base full of Vulkars to take on, and after that, a swoop race to win—not to mention a blockade to break. And that wasn't even counting the war.

"Well," I said, clapping my hands with false enthusiasm. "Enough chit-chat. The sooner we find the swoop accelerator, the sooner this Force-forsaken rancor pit is only a happy memory."

"You know, I'm almost sorry for teaching you that kind of mentality," Mr. Let's-Get-Back-To-The-Task-At-Hand said with a grimace.

"You could have let the rancor live, and then you'd be halfway back to the apartment by now," I pointed out, my grin probably bordering on the smug.

"Sheesh, do you two _ever _give it a rest?" Mission asked, glancing from me to Carth and back again.

"Not really," I said.

"It's her fault," Carth mouthed at Mission, apparently under the mistaken impression that I wouldn't notice.

"Come on, Big Z," Mission said, watching with almost parental disdain as I gave Carth a hearty smack. "If we go pick another fight inside, they'll have to follow."

She was right, of course. And truthfully, I was content to let her take the lead for a while. It gave me the opportunity—if only for a moment— to sit back and revel in the simple fact that all of us had made it out alive. Now that the shock was over, it was kind of exhilarating, in a twisted sort of way—the rush of cheating death. Of having no one to rely on but each other, and finding that we were a better team than we'd thought.

In that moment, I felt like we could have taken on Darth Malak himself and won.

* * *

**To be continued…**


	4. Democracy and Dreams

**A/N: **This was originally going to be the only chapter to take place on Taris, believe it or not. I've modified it since writing the others so that it ties in better and seems a little less superfluous, and I hope I've succeeded. At the very least, it introduces Bastila into the mix and should help kick off the next chapter, which will take place on Dantooine.

I would also like to apologize in advance for the delay in posting the next chapter. It's a lot further from finished than this one was, and things are about to get much busier in terms of coursework... but it'll happen.

**Disclaimer: **This awesome game still belongs to the people who made it.

**Taris Apartment – Democracy and Dreams**

* * *

I couldn't believe we were still having this conversation. Under normal circumstances, I would never yell "shut up" at my superiors—or my friends—but our civilized discussion was starting to escalate into a full-blown argument, and we were still getting nowhere. They left me no choice.

"Look," I said, lowering my voice again now that I'd gotten everyone's attention. "We managed to locate and rescue a captured Jedi in a Sith-quarantined, planet-wide city, and we did it in a matter of _days_. I'm sure we can figure this out."

Carth, Bastila, Mission, and Zaalbar all stared at me with varying degrees of doubt.

"And how, exactly, do you propose we do that?" Bastila snapped, her words dripping with cynicism. Normally this would have gotten on my nerves, but at the moment, I was just relieved that she'd overlooked my accidental slip about "rescuing" her for once.

"Well, the way I see it, we have two plausible options. One: we find another vacant apartment with a functioning lock on the door. Two: we set up a rotation and take turns sleeping in the beds. I think we should vote on it."

Silence reined for a heartbeat or two. I hoped that was a good sign.

"That… sounds reasonable," Carth said at last, albeit somewhat grudgingly. I didn't care. I could have hugged him, simply because it was the first non-argumentative thing anyone besides me had said in the last twenty standard minutes.

"All right, we'll put it to a vote," Bastila conceded, though judging by the look on her face, the mere thought of operating as a democracy was causing her physical pain. "All in favor of finding an additional apartment, raise your hands."

"I think it should be a secret vote, so nobody influences anybody else," Mission objected before any hands even went up. I noticed Bastila's twitch out of the corner of my eye though.

"_And I don't need to participate in this_," Zaalbar rumbled. "_Human beds are too small for me anyway._"

"What did he say?" Bastila asked me.

I closed my eyes, silently counting to five in Shyriiwook before I invented a false translation about how suffocating her need for control was.

"Zaalbar said he doesn't need to participate. He doesn't fit on these beds, so it's a moot point for him."

"Well, that will certainly make matters less complicated. If he did require a bed, we'd be three short, in which case we'd actually need to find _two _more rooms."

I was on the verge of blurting out that that might not be such a bad idea, because otherwise someone would have to share with her, but I held my tongue. The rational part of my brain recognized that I was cranky from lack of sleep, and still a little resentful that she'd refused to acknowledge the roll Carth, Mission, Zaalbar, and I had played in securing her freedom. It was just my wounded pride that was making things difficult. And possibly the fact that I hadn't eaten today. I'd given my last meal pack to Bastila several hours ago, figuring she needed it more than I did, having spent the last few days as a captive of the Vulkars.

If she had thanked me instead of wasting a good five minutes protesting that the Force was the only sustenance she needed, I might have forgiven her.

"All right, since Zaalbar isn't voting, he can do the counting," I said. _Someone_ had to take charge, and I wasn't going to wait for Carth and Bastila to start that again. I wanted to keep the truce in their little power struggle going as long as possible. "Everyone, turn to face one of the walls and close your eyes. Zaalbar? Whenever you're ready."

"_I'm ready. But you or Mission should do the talking…_"

Oh. Right. Even after all the time I'd spent as a translator before I signed on with the fleet, I sometimes still forgot to take language barriers into account. After all, the words made perfect sense to me.

"I'll handle it," I said, for Mission's benefit more than his.

I turned to face the door and waited another beat to make sure everyone had followed my instructions before closing my eyes.

"Right, let's do this. All in favor of finding another apartment?"

I raised my hand, and heard a rustle of fabric that indicated at least one other person doing the same. Probably Bastila.

"_All right_," Zaalbar rumbled.

"All in favor of staying here and setting up a sleeping rotation?"

More rustling of fabric.

It suddenly occurred to me that with Zaalbar abstaining, there were four of us—an even number.

_Please don't let it be a tie…_

"_All right,_" Zaalbar said again.

I opened my eyes, and all of us turned to face the Wookiee who would pronounce our fate.

"_I'm afraid we have an even split,_" he said reluctantly.

My heart sank. And it had seemed like such a good idea… Now we were right back to square one. Damn.

Again, I was tempted to mistranslate… but Mission would know. I grudgingly relayed to Carth and Bastila what Zaalbar had said word-for-word.

"Well, let's talk it out then," Carth suggested, taking the complication in stride. "Maybe if we all explain why we voted the way we did, we can come to some kind of consensus."

I just stared at him. Was he not remembering the twenty minutes we'd wasted trying to do just that?

"Or… at least sway one person to change their vote," he amended.

"I'll change mine right now, just to avoid another argument," I volunteered.

"No, I think we should talk," Carth said seriously. "We don't know how long it's going to take to find a way off this planet, and until then, we're going to have to function as a group. We can't just avoid every conflict that comes up."

I had to admit he had a point. If we couldn't even resolve the trivial issue of who was sleeping where, how were we going to escape a Sith-occupied planet with number one on Malak's most wanted list?

"All right, fine. Who would like to start us off?" I asked—and instantly regretted it. That was opening the door for _another_ argument.

But Mission saved me.

"I'll start," she said at once, mimicking Bastila's impeccable posture—consciously or otherwise—now that all eyes were on her. "As most of you know, me and Big Z aren't exactly used to a life of luxury. We pretty much just crash wherever we can find a safe spot, so as long as the Sith haven't come snooping through here, I don't see what the problem is. And I'd rather stick together than have some of us bunking down a couple of blocks away where it might not be safe, ya know? We don't have any way to get a hold of each other if something happens."

Wow. The fourteen-year-old had put a lot more thought into her vote than I had. But then again, she and Zaalbar had probably been dealing with this issue for years. For the first time since we'd joined forces, I wondered where they _had_ been staying. But I didn't ask. If it was one of the cheap, easily-broken-into apartments in the lower city—or worse, out in the streets— I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

"And I'm with Mission," Carth said. "The Sith haven't come poking their noses into this apartment in all the time we've been planetside, but we don't know if the same can be said for another one. And now that we have Bastila, avoiding detection is more important than ever. I think it's best if we just stay here."

I turned to our resident Jedi, who had been watching with an inscrutable expression throughout the whole exchange.

"And how about you?" I prompted. The reasoning behind my vote was essentially just that we'd be more comfortable with more space (physically _and _emotionally), which couldn't hold a candle to Carth's and Mission's concerns for our safety and the success of the mission. They already had me sold on staying here, and I just wanted to know if there was any conceivable reason we shouldn't.

After all, it wasn't the beds we'd been fighting over. Our twenty-minute argument had mostly consisted of everyone trying to talk two of the others into taking them while he or she slept in one of the chairs or on the floor. In theory, we could avoid the problem altogether by leaving the beds vacant, if it really came down to that. It just seemed stupid.

"Well," Bastila said briskly, "I simply thought these accommodations were too small for the five of us, and hoped that finding additional space would allow us to avoid having this argument again in the future. But if we can all be professional about this and work out a suitable arrangement, I _would _rather we didn't waste valuable time searching for another apartment when we need to focus on escaping Taris."

Perfect. It was practically unanimous, and I didn't even _have_ to change my vote.

"It's decided then," I said. "We're staying. And for the first night, I think Bastila and Mission should take the beds. Carth and I had more than our fair share before we found the rest of you."

"But I'm the—"

"No arguing," I said, cutting Mission off. "Unless Carth is willing to trade with you."

I glanced over at my fellow soldier, hoping belatedly that he hadn't taken offense at my speaking for him. But he didn't look upset about it. If anything, he looked smug.

"Not a chance," he said, dropping into a chair and yanking off his boots.

Mission scowled, but didn't say anything more. She chose the bunk that had formerly belonged to me and curled up on top of the sheets, probably in protest.

Bastila took the other without a word. Zaalbar found a spot on the floor—on Mission's side of the room, of course—and I decided to follow suit. Cushioned or not, the small, low-backed chairs didn't look all that comfortable.

I crossed to Bastila's side of the room and lay down with my back to the wall, cushioning my head with my standard-issue pack.

_This isn't too bad,_ I told myself. The crick I would have in my neck in the morning was a fair price to pay for the peace and quiet.

"I'll get the lights," Carth said, and a moment later we were plunged into darkness. I couldn't even make out the outline of the table less than a meter from my face. Carth's footsteps finally ceased on the far side of the room—Mission and Zaalbar's side—but I knew better than to take it personally. If I was him, I wouldn't want to sleep anywhere near Bastila either… except that I was doing just that. But it would have hurt her feelings if we had _all_ chosen the far side. And besides, we were going to spend the next several hours unconscious. How bad could it be?

I closed my eyes and wondered if this would ever feel normal—sharing space with people who weren't just soldiers assigned to the same post as me. Carth and Bastila were too important to the war effort for me to think our paths would run parallel for long, but Zaalbar's life-debt to me ensured he and Mission would be sticking around for a while. Unless I released him from it when we left Taris. And that was assuming we even found a way to break the blockade…

I sighed. There was no point in dwelling on our problems now. We could deal with them in the morning when we weren't so burned out from fighting—with _and_ without weapons.

I was just starting to relax when a sound of disgust from Mission broke the silence.

"These beds aren't even comfortable! Why in space didn't one of you two mention that half an hour ago? You actually _wanted_ the floor, didn't you?"

I heard Carth's distinct chuckle from across the room and couldn't help but grin. I hadn't mentioned that particular detail simply because it had never occurred to me. I was used to the bunks on the _Endar Spire_, which were just as uncomfortable as these, if not worse.

But it was more fun to pretend it had been a conspiracy.

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about, Mission. We gave you a bed, and it's the thought that counts, right?"

"I'll let you know in the morning," she grumbled. I pictured her scowling at me in the dark.

"Don't worry. Tomorrow we get to fight over who gets the first turn in the 'fresher," Carth reminded her.

"_And don't forget breakfast_," Zaalbar added. "_We're out of meal packs_."

"All right, that's enough, guys," I said. I was interpreting Bastila's conspicuous silence as her being too polite to ask us to shut up, though I couldn't have explained why. It was just a feeling. "Good night, everyone."

"Good night."

I closed my eyes, but to my dismay, shutting down my brain proved to be considerably more difficult than putting an end to the chatter.

I didn't know if it was the Force or just the fact that I couldn't tune out the sound of her breathing, but whenever I tried to let my mind go blank, my thoughts inevitably found their way back to Bastila.

I remembered with particular clarity the almost physical shock of recognizing her as the Jedi from my dreams. As I'd squinted at her jarringly familiar face through the bars of her cage, I had honestly thought I was _still _dreaming. And even now, whenever she spoke, I half-expected everyone else not to hear her. It was going to be a while before she felt like a real person, and not a figment of my imagination that had somehow crossed over into the real world.

Watching her take on the Vulkars hadn't done anything to shatter that illusion, either. Seeing the Force in action was… impossible to put to words. It was as if the laws of physics had suddenly become optional, but only for Bastila. All she had to do was lift her hand, and a full-grown man two meters away would go flying across the room. It took a good thirty seconds and a lot of equally surprised Vulkars to convince me I wasn't going insane.

Needless to say, once I established that this superhuman being was not a hallucination brought on by my lack of sleep, I was no longer a skeptic when it came to the Force. But that only made what she told me later that afternoon even more terrifying.

Bastila thought I was Force-sensitive—that _I _could have the potential to do all those… impossible things that were second nature to her. She'd been far from confident in her assessment, but according to her, it was the only explanation for the visions I'd confessed to having, not to mention the fact that I'd managed to find her in the first place.

While I resented the casual way she took it for granted that a non-Jedi couldn't have accomplished what I had without the aid of the Force, I knew she was at least partially right. I'd chalked our uncannily good fortune down to the Force myself. And what were the odds of my imagination conjuring up a Jedi who happened to look identical to Bastila all on its own, down to the ornate detail on her robes? I was Force-sensitive. I had to be.

I just wasn't sure what that meant for my future.

I craned my neck to look up at the dark outline that was Bastila Shan, the hope of the Republic, and wondered whether she ever regretted becoming a Jedi. They took most of their potential candidates in infancy, so it probably hadn't even been her choice. It was strange to think that the only difference between her and me was that her potential to use the Force had been discovered at an early age, and mine hadn't. I wondered whether I would have become as uptight and overbearing as Bastila if I'd grown up doing… whatever Jedi did in place of schooling or a normal career. And whether I would have been any good at it. Would growing up without a family have made me lonely, or simply more independent? Would I have viewed Carth and the others merely as assets, rather than something very close to friends? Or would I never have met them at all? What would I have been doing right now, in this very moment, if I had been raised as a Jedi?

But it was all empty speculation. There was no way to know what I would have become. I didn't even know whether I had enough of a connection to the Force to lift a data pad, let alone master Battle Meditation like Bastila had. Maybe my Force-sensitivity was only ever going to manifest itself in the form of strange visions, and I wouldn't have had the potential to become a Jedi even if I _had_ been discovered.

I rolled onto my back and closed my eyes again, trying to get comfortable.

It was stupid to compare myself to Bastila, I decided at last. Whatever my life could have been, it had no bearing on the person I was now. Even if the Jedi Council confirmed her theory that I was Force-sensitive, what would it matter? They wouldn't make me a Jedi—not at my age. It was pointless even to entertain the thought. Why should I beat myself over the head with something I could never have? I was quite content with my life already, putting my talents to use for a worthwhile cause. That was more than a lot of people could boast. I was happy. I _was_.

But all the same, I wouldn't have minded getting another taste of what it was like to be a Jedi in my dreams.

* * *

**To be continued…**


	5. The Art of Telling the Truth While Lying

**A/N: **I hope you haven't forgotten all about my story and me in the few decades since I last posted, but if you have, I don't blame you. But here it is at last—the proof that I am not, in fact, dead. I apologize again for the long wait, and I wish I could tell you the next chapter will come more promptly, but unfortunately that is highly unlikely as it's only an idea in my head at this point. I hope you don't mind the suspense. After all, I'm not stretching the in-game plot in any unusual directions (yet) ;-) so it's not like you don't have any idea how this is going to play out.

**Intergalactic Surgeon General's Warning: **If you suffer adverse effects in the case of a Bastila overdose, this chapter may be hazardous to your mental health.

**Disclaimer: **This awesome game belongs to the people who made it, of whom I shall be forever jealous.

**Dantooine – The Art of Telling the Truth While Lying**

* * *

I ducked under Bastila's lateral slice, bringing my vibroblade back up with plenty of time to meet her next blow. I was getting better at this. But even as I congratulated myself on not getting nicked yet today, I couldn't help but wonder whether my ever-increasing skill would be enough to make up for years of lost training. The Masters' doubt in my ability to stay on the path of the light was contagious, and it didn't seem to be lessening as my abilities grew.

With a sigh, I straightened up out of my fighting stance and let my blade hang loosely at my side. My concentration was obviously elsewhere, and there was no point in going on like that.

"Why are they so worried that I'll fall?"

I wasn't sure if the surprise on Bastila's face was in response to my question or the fact that I'd actually been stupid enough to let my guard down in the middle of our daily bout of sparring. She'd been in mid-swing when I asked the question, and her blade was still hovering a hand's-breadth from my neck.

"Is it too much to ask that you _warn _me when you're going to stop defending yourself in the middle of a fight?" she demanded. "I could have killed you!"

"You have Jedi reflexes and you can read my mind," I reminded her. "I wasn't too concerned."

"I cannot 'read' your mind," she snapped, lowering her weapon and readopting her customary Vrook-like frown. "I can sense what you are feeling—nothing more. And I think you set too much store by a Jedi's ability to foresee the future."

I wondered how long she was expecting it to take me to figure out that she lectured when she was stalling.

"You still haven't answered my question."

"And we still haven't finished our practice session," she countered.

"Sure we did. You just beat me."

I turned and started walking back to the weapons rack on the wall. Bastila's frustration was palpable—literally, in my case. I still wasn't used to the sensation of being fed up with my own pigheadedness, though I'd been getting more and more practice lately. For someone who was frequently driven to distraction by my stubborn streak, Bastila could use some mellowing out herself.

But I knew better than to dwell on that, or she'd sense my resentment. Instead, I turned my Jedi self-discipline to the task of making sure I didn't place my practice sword on the rack any harder than necessary.

"Very well," Bastila sighed at last, stowing her vibroblade next to mine. "We'll make up for the lost time tomorrow. Now what was so important that you had to ask me in the middle of the exercise?"

"It's the Council. Are they ever going to stop worrying that I'll turn to the dark side?"

She considered me for a moment, but I could tell she wasn't trying to figure out the answer. She already knew.

"Probably not, no. The lure of the dark side is not something that grows weaker with time. A Jedi is never fully immune to the temptation, not even one so experienced and wise as Master Vandar."

I sighed.

"I know. But that's not what I meant."

"Then what _did _you mean?" she asked. She was trying to be patient, and so far she wasn't doing too badly—for _her_ at least. I appreciated the effort, which was probably helping, now that I thought about it. Because she could _tell_ I appreciated it.

That wasn't the first time I'd wondered whether Bastila might get along with people better if she was bonded to everyone in the universe. Not that I would wish that on her. Picking up one person's memories and emotions was more than enough.

"Can we sit?" I asked, nodding toward a nearby bench.

"Of course."

I felt a spike in her level of concern, but the only outward sign was a slight furrowing of her brow. She led the way, and I imitated her delicate manner of lowering herself onto the bench without even thinking. As much as I still tried to fight it, Bastila was rubbing off on me. It was probably inevitable, but that didn't make me any wilder about the idea. I wondered vaguely whether Carth and the others would even recognize me when my training was done.

Bastila cleared her throat.

"Sorry. I'm trying not to think about them."

"It isn't that," she said, surprising me. "I'm just trying to keep your focus on the matter at hand. I can't help if you don't tell me what's bothering you."

I sighed, wringing my hands as I tried to figure out where to begin so that she would understand.

"Sometimes… I wonder why the Council decided to train me," I said. Bastila opened her mouth, and I held up a hand to stop her before she repeated the explanation I'd been hearing over and over again since I arrived. "I know it's because of our visions, and my strong affinity for the Force and all that. But… I still get the sense that they don't really expect me to succeed—that they're all just waiting for me to fall. Master Vrook may be the only one who admits outright that he doesn't trust me, but I know he's not alone. I can feel it every time they look at me, and I don't understand why. Is it really so dangerous for an adult to become a Jedi? Or have I done something wrong?"

Bastila's sharp grey eyes softened just a little.

"You haven't done anything wrong. Your progress has been remarkable, and you have shown every sign of adhering to the light. It is simply your age and your past that concern them."

"My past?" _That _was an answer I hadn't heard before. "What's the matter with my past? I've never even gotten a fine for speeding."

"I wasn't referring to your record, which is, of course, spotless," Bastila said with care. Her tone betrayed as little as ever, but it didn't take a genius to figure out she was trying to placate me.

And I wished she wouldn't bother. I would much rather know the truth than have my feelings spared.

"_What_ then?" I demanded.

Bastila didn't actually sigh, but she shot me an exasperated look that produced much the same effect. She knew I wasn't going to let this one go, which didn't leave her many options. She was going to tell me, and we both knew it.

"I doubt you'll find the answer to your liking," she said at last, "but if you must know, there are a number of things about you that the Council finds… worrisome. Your history of attachments to friends and family is a given, considering your background, so the Council won't hold that against you, provided that you remain committed to the Order. But where they _do _take issue is your willingness to subvert the law, or any authority that gets in your way, in order to achieve your objectives. The Council—"

"You can't be serious," I interrupted.

"Please, let me finish," she said, though she managed to make the polite request sound like a reprimand. "I appreciate the lengths you went to in order to find me, but they _are_ some cause for concern. In addition to breaking into the Sith base, which is a legitimate military target, you involved yourself in an illegal gang war and killed more than a few locals who stood in your way. The Council simply wants to be certain that when you find yourself in a difficult situation, you can be trusted to act as a Jedi should, and not fall back on… old habits. Memorizing our Code is one thing, but abiding by it out in the real world is an entirely different matter."

"Well, how are they going to find out what I would do in the 'real world' if they never let me leave the enclave?" I demanded.

I didn't mean to sound as snappish as I probably did, but punishing me for my method of rescuing Bastila was just… ridiculous. The whole planet was under Sith occupation! What did they want me to do? File a "missing person" report at the Sith military base? I thought I deserved some credit for at least _trying _to minimize the casualties by winning Bastila in a swoop race rather than holding Brejik at blasterpoint and demanding her release. It wasn't my fault he went back on his word and tried to kill us.

And I seemed to recall Bastila dispatching quite a few people during her escape, too.

"Be mindful of your thoughts," Bastila said, jarring me back to reality. "You're starting down a dangerous road."

"I thought you couldn't read my thoughts."

"Well, you're not exactly trying to conceal them, are you? I know it doesn't seem fair, but you must be able to understand the Council's concern. You have the potential to become a great Jedi, but you would be an equally great threat if things were to go… badly."

I sighed. She was right, of course. I supposed I was meant to find the compliment regarding my abilities inspiring, but all it did was make me wish I were a little more ordinary. It was hard to believe that only a week ago, I had worried I would be rejected for training due to a lack of potential.

"Do _you_ think I'm going to fall?" I asked at last.

She blinked rapidly, taken aback. It wasn't often that she actually voiced her _own _opinions—or that I asked her to.

"And you can tell me the truth," I said. "You won't hurt my feelings either way. Between Carth and the Jedi Masters, I'm long past expecting anyone to trust me."

Bastila looked me straight in the eye when she finally answered, and there was something like pity in her eyes. Her earlier impatience had disappeared without a trace.

"I don't know," she said simply. "I know that probably isn't the answer you want to hear, but it's the truest one I can give. You keep surprising me, and I can only hope you'll prove the Council wrong as well."

And then she actually _smiled_. It was faint, just a slight upturning of the corners of her mouth, but it was there: the proof that she had a heart in there somewhere, buried under all the Jedi propriety.

"Thanks," I said. I didn't have to elaborate; she knew I meant it.

"You're welcome. But I don't think you have the right to be quite so astonished that I'm capable of smiling," she added stiffly.

It was all I could do to keep a straight face.

"You're kidding, right?"

"No, I'm—! For your information, I am as human as you or Carth," she protested hotly. "Perhaps even more so than your friend the Mandalorian."

A feeling very much like homesickness washed over me at the casual reference to my companions on the _Ebon Hawk_, but like a good little Jedi, I didn't let myself dwell on it. There would be time enough to miss them when they were gone.

"Oh, come on. Canderous isn't _that_ bad," I said, forcibly keeping my tone light. "He's just a little rough around the edges. Besides, now that we're free of the Sith quarantine, he probably won't be sticking around much longer anyway."

"One can only hope," Bastila said, a little too readily.

Maybe it was realizing that she really wouldn't miss them at all that did me in, or maybe my willpower simply wasn't as strong as I liked to think it was. Whatever the reason, my thoughts finally turned to the eventuality I'd been trying to forget about ever since we left Taris: saying goodbye. After all, Canderous wasn't the only one who was as good as gone. I wondered how soon Carth would be going back to the fleet—and whether I was the only one who would be sorry if we never saw each other again. Then there was also the increasingly complicated matter of Zaalbar and Mission. Life-debt or not, it was hard to see the Jedi allowing them to hang around the enclave forever, or accompany me on my Jedi missions—assuming I was ever entrusted with any. I was sure that if I asked, they would say they still wanted to stick with me, but we had to be realistic here. Being a Jedi changed more than just my job description. In the past week, my whole life had taken a ninety-degree turn, and it was going to be hard for them to hang on for this particular ride.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have reminded you," Bastila said with a sigh. "I know you aren't looking forward to parting ways. But you do realize it was always inevitable. Even if you hadn't joined the Order—"

"I know," I said, wishing she'd let the subject drop. "The result would have been the same. But I'm still going to miss them."

"Why do my feelings tell me that by 'them,' you really mean Carth?"

It was a wonder I didn't snap my neck whipping around to face her. And really, I needn't have bothered. Bastila's expression was unreadable.

"Carth and I have been through a lot together," I said, in what I hoped was a passably neutral tone. "I've gotten used to having him around, that's all."

"Is it? He's been sulking more than usual since you began your training."

I'd picked up on that as well, the one time I'd seen him, but I knew better than to think my absence was actually the cause.

"We just watched an entire planet die," I reminded her. "He's probably remembering when the same thing happened to his homeworld."

I still didn't fully understand Carth's vendetta against Saul Karath, but after watching Taris go down in flames, it was harder to blame him.

All the same, I hoped Mission found a less destructive method of coping with her grief.

"Well, I'm not glad to hear it, but that does simplify matters," Bastila said at last.

Those "matters" happened to be my life, and I wasn't so sure I _wanted_ them to be simple, but I didn't argue. I didn't want to give her another reason to suspect there was anything more between Carth and me than a lot of joking and simple camaraderie. The last thing I needed was for her to misread the situation and tell the Council, thereby demolishing what little faith they still had in me.

"Now then, if you don't have any more questions, you really should get back to your training," Bastila said, rising from the bench. "I believe Master Dorak has pulled some more documents from the archives for you to read."

I usually looked forward to seeing what the enclave's chronicler had for me, partly because he wasn't nearly as unpleasant to me as Master Vrook was, and partly because reading datapads was something I could already do well, unlike levitating them. But if I was honest, I also enjoyed my study sessions because they were some of the only times of the day I got a break from Bastila. This was more welcome some days than others, but never an actual downside for me.

Until today.

I may not have liked the turn our conversation had taken, but the thought of spending the rest of the long afternoon by myself, reading texts written by Jedi who were long dead, didn't hold its usual appeal—and I was pretty sure I knew the reason why. Bastila was more right than she knew; she shouldn't have reminded me of the upcoming farewells to be said. Joining the Order didn't just mean cutting ties with the people who had fled Taris with us. I was also renouncing my connection to my friends and family back on Deralia. I was about to lose everyone I knew in one stroke.

Bastila was about to become the only person I had left.

And somehow, that depressing prospect seemed to have shifted some of my problematic power of attachment toward her.

"Are you feeling all right?" she asked, frowning down at me. It finally registered that she had suggested I go to the archives a good thirty seconds ago, and I hadn't shown the slightest inclination to budge. And she would know.

"Sorry. Yes. I'm fine," I said.

"Are you sure? Perhaps you should take an hour or two off. You _have_ been working nearly non-stop… with the exception of our last sparring session, of course."

I wasn't sure at all, but I did know that taking an hour off would only give me more time to wallow in my thoughts, and that was the last thing I needed. Unless I used that time to pay a visit to my friends on the _Ebon Hawk_… but what would that really accomplish in the end? They were still going to leave, and I was still going to miss them just as much.

"I'll go to the archives," I decided. "See you at dinner?"

Bastila said nothing for a moment, and I could feel her uncertainty. No doubt she still sensed that there was something wrong that I wasn't letting on, but by now she also knew better than to think pestering me was going to get any results.

"Yes. See you at dinner," Bastila echoed, bowing slightly before turning to leave.

She made it all the way to the doorway before I blurted out, somewhat guiltily and half shocked at myself, "Hey, thanks for listening to me. I know I can be… difficult."

"Do you?" she said. She turned to glance back at me over her shoulder, and unless I was imagining it, a flicker of a smirk touched her lips. "Then perhaps there is hope that you can be reformed yet."

And then she was gone.

_I could say the same for you_, I couldn't help thinking. That single wry comment was a far cry from the near-constant stream of repartee Carth and I had been had been trading, but if she was capable of teasing me, maybe there was still a glimmer of hope that I could teach her to have a real sense of humor.

It wasn't much of a life goal, but it was one more than I'd had an hour ago.

And even a Jedi could have a hobby, right?

* * *

**To be continued...**


	6. Misunderstood

**Misunderstood**

* * *

**Author's Note:** Yes, I am still alive. Shocking, I know. I apologize for the obscenely long silence. I finally decided to just post the two chapters that are completed, even though it means skipping over (for now) the painfully-close-to-being-finished Tatooine chapter that comes before this one. I still plan to finish it and insert it in its proper place, but it'll probably be a while before that happens.

**Kashyyyk**

* * *

"What are you talking about? We came all this way to find this thing, and now you don't even want to take a look at it?"

The holo-projected image of some sort of fishlike, bipedal creature continued to hover over the computer. In the gloom of Kashyyyk's Shadowlands, it was easy to imagine the glowing blue figure being part of some sort of booby-trap, a lure for unsuspecting travelers, perhaps—not that anyone in the Shadowlands fit that description. Everyone down here was either armed to the teeth or mad, and I was beginning to wonder whether my little party might not fit both criteria.

Carth was certainly looking at me as if I'd lost my mind.

"You're right," I said with a sigh. "I just… have a bad feeling about this. It's too easy."

I hadn't thought he could look any more incredulous, but he proved me wrong.

"Easy? Is that what you call being attacked by Dark Jedi, Mandalorians, hordes of kinrath, those nasty flapping things, a mad Wookiee, Czerka, and… whatever that giant ritual beast was? And what about the force field we never would have made it past on our own? This thing's defenses make that krayt dragon on Tatooine look like a welcoming committee."

I raised my eyebrows.

"If you really mind that much, I'm sure Canderous or HK would love to be my gunman next time."

As I knew it would, that got him to take it down a notch. There's nothing like the threat of being left on the ship with Bastila to put things back in perspective—though I liked to think Carth would have objected anyway to my plunging into danger with only a known sociopath as backup.

"No, I— I'm not complaining," he said. "I just think—"

"Are we going to get this Star Map of yours or stand here arguing until I die of old age?" Jolee cut in. "I don't mind either way, but if it's to be the latter, I'd rather die back in my hut where I'll at least have some peace and quiet."

I gathered from Carth's stunned silence that he, too, had momentarily forgotten the old hermit was there.

"No, that won't be necessary," I assured Jolee. "You're right. You're _both_ right. I'm probably just being paranoid."

I turned back toward the mysterious console, willing myself to ignore my misgivings. It wasn't even fear, really, that made me hesitate. Just… a funny feeling.

I shook it off and marched up to the computer.

The machine responded almost instantly.

"Life forms detected," it announced—in Basic, thankfully. Being a polyglot didn't mean continually flipping from Shyriiwook to cannibalized Mando'a to ancient Selkath was fun. I even had trouble understanding Jolee half the time when he was speaking plain Basic- though I had to wonder if that was really my fault or if he was being deliberately enigmatic. At any rate, if this computer had cycled through three or four extinct languages like the droid in the ruins on Dantooine, I would probably have started speaking in gibberish, and then Carth would _really_ think I'd snapped.

"Determining parameters," the machine went on, continuing to regale us with its boring internal monologue. "Initiating neural recognition."

"Obstinate machine," Jolee muttered. "I've no doubt it holds what you seek, but good luck getting it operational."

"Primary neural recognition complete. Preliminary match found."

"Match found?" Jolee exclaimed. "What the—? It always muttered something about 'rejected patterns' for me!"

I was just as surprised as he was. There was no reason it should respond to me and not to him, unless 'preliminary match' simply referred to the fact that I was female. And what the kriff did this thing mean by 'neural recognition'? Was it reading my mind? Was that even possible?

"Begin socialized interface," the computer said. "Awaiting instruction. Greetings. This terminal has not been accessed for some time."

I had to ask.

"Why have you acknowledged me?"

"Error. Subject displays unfamiliarity to environment. Behavioral reconfiguration will be needed before access."

I gritted my teeth. I should have just demanded access to the Star Map right away.

"I am sorry," the computer said, sounding much more patronizing now. "I did not mean to confuse you. I will answer any questions to the best of my programming limitations."

"Fine, great. What did you mean before by behavior reconfiguration?"

"I have been programmed with a very limited field of knowledge, and I must restrict access to only those that fit my allowed pattern."

"And I don't fit that pattern?"

"I can't say. Preliminary matching allows you to be coached."

That was no answer at all.

"Do you not know why, or are you restricted from saying?"

"I can't say. Likelihood of removal by previous user, one hundred percent."

Well, that was certainly interesting. And it did answer my question, in a roundabout sort of way. It also told me that the machine would go to any measures short of actually circumventing its programming to answer my questions, which was going to make this a lot less painful— I hoped.

"I seek information about a Star Map."

I could feel Carth and Jolee holding their breaths on either side of me as we waited for its answer.

"Accessing. Yes, I have found a Star Map in original system memory. Access is restricted."

No surprise there.

"What do I need to do to get access to the Star Map?"

"Your request requires additional security access. You must be made to match the parameters I have been supplied."

"How can I match them when I don't know what they are?"

I wasn't going to admit it aloud, but Carth was right; getting the Star Map on Tatooine had been a walk in the park compared to this.

"There are measures available," the computer assured me, though that vague response didn't go a long way toward boosting my confidence. "Personality profiling will verify the basic structure of your conscious mind. With that, I will determine whether you are ready to receive the Star Map, or can be made ready."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Information unavailable. If you have further questions, ask them now. Access will terminate with success or failure of evaluation."

Great. So I only got one shot at this, and all I knew about the computer's parameters was that whoever it was comparing me to knew a hell of a lot more about this place than I did, which was a little hard to fake.

This was going to go wonderfully.

"I want to ask questions about you and this installation," I said. Hopefully its answers would shed at least a little light on the parameters I was supposed to match.

"I utilize a retro-adapted holocron-interface," the computer said. "Clarify your questions and I will attempt to access original system memory."

Retro-adapted? That was odd.

"Who installed this holo-interface then?"

"This interface was installed to better access the ancient data stored within the pre-existing system. The exact date is unavailable. Programming keys indicate no earlier than five years before current Republic standard."

I, who had been expecting the holo-projected avatar to say the Builders had installed it several thousand years ago, was somewhat taken aback by this response.

"Hmm, five years ago? I didn't notice it," Jolee said. "This must have been installed in strictest secrecy. It couldn't have been Czerka…"

Who, then? Five years ago… Why was that number ringing a bell? What was going on in the galaxy about five years ago?

"No further information on time of installation or identity of user available. Likelihood of removal by user, one hundred percent."

Well, someone had certainly been thorough about covering their tracks. But why? Why would the previous user bother going to so much trouble to hide the fact that he or she had found the Star Map? Virtually no one knew what it really was.

That was when it struck me.

"Five years ago is about the time Revan would have passed this way…"

"Error. Data regarding subject 'Revan' corrupted."

There were butterflies in my stomach now. I was onto something; I knew it.

"But there was an entry at some time?"

"Error. Data on 'Revan' unavailable."

That might as well have been a yes. Even if Revan wasn't the one who installed this holo-interface, it had most likely been here during that fateful search for the Star Forge, so a total absence of data regarding Revan meant someone had deleted it—and if the computer could be trusted, there was a 100% chance that someone was the same someone whose information was gone. But I wanted to be _sure_ there was no data on Revan and that this wasn't just a glitch.

"Who last accessed this installation?"

"Sorting by identity. Three attempts by the Wookiee Freyyr, all denied. One hundred fifty-two attempts by human Jolee Bindo, all denied."

I couldn't help but raise my eyebrows at Jolee.

"Heh…. Call me stubborn, I guess," he said with a laugh. "There wasn't much else to do around here."

_Yeah, but… a hundred and fifty-two? When you never even made it past the preliminary scan?_

I wasn't sure whether I should be questioning his sanity or admiring his persistence.

"Error," the digitized voice chirped, drawing my attention back to the computer. "List of access attempts prior to these is corrupted. Likelihood of removal by user, one hundred percent."

Yes!No record of Revan, or of any successful attempts after Revan came was all I needed to know. I was willing to bet I knew what pattern I was supposed to fit in order to gain access to the Star Map now.

"All right, thank you. I'm ready to begin that evaluation."

The computer complied.

"Evaluation commencing. Results will be compared against the pattern in memory. Just act like you should."

It was only then that it occurred to me that I didn't actually know whether Revan had fallen to the dark side before or after finding this map. That was going to make acting like Revan considerably more difficult… and that was assuming my theory that I was being compared to the late Sith Lord was correct in the first place.

What had I gotten myself into?

But the computer wasn't waiting for me to finish mentally kicking myself.

"You travel with a Wookiee and have encountered complications. Hypothetical: you and this Zaalbar are captured and separated. If you both remain silent, one year in prison for each of you. However, call Zaalbar a traitor, and he will serve five years, while you serve none. He is offered the same deal, but if you both accuse the other, you both serve 2 years. What do you do? What do you trust him to do?"

I'm sure I started when the computer used Zaalbar's name. I actually glanced behind me to make sure it really was Carth and Jolee with me and not my captured Wookiee companion. And when I turned back to the computer, it was with much more suspicion.

"How do you know about Zaalbar?"

"I hear what happens on Kashyyyk, and a good deal beyond. Answer the question I have posed."

I deliberated for a long time, not because there would be any question what I would do in real life, but because I didn't know which way the computer was expecting me to answer.

I finally decided there was only one way to find out.

I told the truth.

"I trust Zaalbar. I would say nothing, and neither would he."

"Your loyalty is dangerous," the computer warned me. "Your companion could take the opportunity to benefit by turning on you. Zaalbar's family is mired in treachery. What loyalty do they know? Your answer is incorrect."

"This machine certainly seems to want a very specific type of response," Jolee said.

I had to agree. But at least the computer's response had answered my question. The Revan it knew had definitely been a Sith, or at least well on his way. I just hoped I hadn't blown my only chance of getting the Star Map.

I decided to play dumb and protest the absurdity of there being such a thing as an incorrect answer on a personality profiling. It wasn't difficult to summon the proper indignation.

"I thought this was an evaluation, not a quiz."

"I must match your behavior to the pattern in memory," the computer insisted. "You must answer truthfully, knowing the consequences. I must demand honest acceptance of the proper behavior. That is a condition of my programming."

Once again, I had to wonder if the computer was somehow reading my mind. Did it know I had been considering lying, or was it just clarifying the rules of the test? I wasn't going to ask.

"Continue with your evaluation then. Unless I've already failed."

"The previous incorrect response will be discounted. Future incorrect responses will result in rejection."

I would have breathed a sigh of relief, except… now I knew I had to lie. Would the computer really be able to tell if I gave a Sith-like answer without "honest acceptance of the proper behavior"? If so, I was royally screwed. But if not…

It was time to find out how good I was at lying.

I did as Bastila had taught me and tried to close my mind. With my true thoughts locked away, it should be a simple matter to project the right thoughts and fool the computer—in theory. I had never actually had to put this skill to the test before.

I waited for the next question, trying to keep my heart from racing.

"Hypothetical: you are at war. Deciphering an intercepted code, you learn two things about your enemy. A single spot in their defense will be at its weakest in ten days, and they will attack one of your cities in five days. What do you do with this information? What is the most efficient course of action?"

From a Sith's point of view? That was easy. I could even pretend the machine was only asking which strategy would be the most efficient, and ignore the fact that it was supposed to have any bearing on me as an individual.

"I prepare my forces to attack in ten days," I said smoothly. "I do nothing in the city."

"Very good." Somehow the machine managed to sound pleased. "If you had moved to evacuate the city, you would have alerted the enemy to their lost codes."

That hadn't even occurred to me, but I nodded as if that had been my logic all along.

I made a mental note to self not to think like just a stereotypical Sith.I also had to consider what made the most strategic sense. Revan was subtler than Malak, who subscribed to the blow-up-the-whole-planet school of thought, and I would have to remember to take that into account.

I was so preoccupied I didn't notice the way Carth was staring at me until he spoke.

"You mean you'd just let all those people _die_? That's monstrous!"

My jaw dropped in horror. Carth was thinking of Telos. Or maybe Taris. Or both. The anger and disillusionment on his face made it clear that I'd once again lost his hard-earned trust. Involuntarily, I flashed back to the last conversation we'd had, in which he expressed his worries that even Bastila and I weren't immune to the temptations of the dark side. This must have looked like confirmation of all his fears.

_I didn't mean it! _I wanted to say. _Why are you taking what I say seriously? Can't you see that I'm just telling the computer what it wants to hear?_

I wanted—_needed_—to explain, but I couldn't. Not here, not with the computer watching, still evaluating my every word and gesture.

I would just have to go through with this and hope Carth would still listen to me when I was done. I prayed there wouldn't be any more questions about backstabbing the people I traveled with.

_If I lose Carth because of you, you stupid machine, I'm going to carve you to pieces with my lightsaber._

Fortunately, it didn't seem to be aware of what I was thinking. Like my pilot, it had believed me.

"Ultimate victory required the deaths of the people in that city," the computer was saying. "You wisely ignored sentiment in your decision."

Carth looked like he wanted nothing more than to smash the console in, but I trusted him to put the mission first. That was the one thing I could always count on, even in the early days when he still thought I was going to kill him in his sleep.

I reflected that those days might be returning all too soon, but I didn't have much of a choice. The computer was clearly still waiting for me to say something, so I agreed with it, just in case it rightly interpreted my silence as a sign of remorse.

Carth was going to hate me for this.

"That's right. The deaths of those people would spur my forces on."

I deliberately avoided looking at him, even though I could feel his glare all but burning a hole through the side of my head.

"Very good reasoning," the computer commended me. "I will apply it to the rest of the evaluation. You begin to match the pattern in memory."

_See? _I wanted to say. _That's all I'm doing. Trying to match Revan's responses._

But it was hard to convey that without speaking or even looking at someone.

I steeled myself for the next question, wanting nothing more than to get this over with.

"Hypothetical: remove the ongoing war from the previous example. Consider enemy states to be weak and remote. With no external threat, your empire stagnates. Your people become complacent and begin to question you. Same scenario as before; you discover an impending attack, but also a weakness that will come after. How do you react?"

That one was trickier. The obvious thing to do would be to give the same answer as before, but that seemed too simple, and I had to consider the change in the factors. Stereotypically, a Sith wouldn't care if one of her cities was wiped out, but a Sith with an empire to rule might feel differently. Power was everything to the Sith, and losing a city would certainly look bad and cause the people to question their leader. Then again, that was already the case…

_With no external threat, your empire stagnates._

That was the key, wasn't it? Successfully stopping the attack might serve as a temporary fix, but once the people were safe, they would become complacent again. There was only one way to make sure my empire remained strong.

"I let the attack happen."

"Of course you do," the computer agreed. "It makes the most strategic sense. Your people will rally beneath you against the common foe. As their eyes turn outward, your rule will strengthen. The trappings of war grant many opportunities." It paused for a moment, humming, and then went on. "You have matched the pattern in memory. I recognize you, and will fulfill my designated functions."

_Finally_.

"Give me access to the Star Map."

"Yes, you are ready. Soon you will recognize the proper course of action. The Star Map is yours. This unit has now completed its primary duty and has finished with the subject. Executing final action. Activation of the Star Map commencing. Parameters reset. Stasis initiated. End communication."

The Star Map groaned as its stone petals opened, the sphere in the center levitating a meter off the ground before exploding with light. The familiar orb of constellations appeared, and I deftly entered the new charts into a spare datapad, mostly as an excuse not to look at Carth.

"Well, well. A Star Map. An ancient artifact of dark side power," Jolee mused, seemingly transfixed by it. The things were old news to me now; I had forgotten he'd never seen this one activated in spite of his many attempts. "Can't say I'm surprised. I always knew there was something funny down here. I wonder if the Star Map had an effect on the evolution of the creatures here in the Shadowlands… Might explain why it's so dangerous down here."

He must have picked up on my complete and total lack of interest in what he was saying, because his tone immediately became more matter-of-fact, and he started backtracking.

"An interesting theory, but I suppose we don't have time to test it now, do we? Now that we've got what you came for, we should be heading back up to the treetops."

I just nodded. Carth neither spoke nor moved, staring at something off in the shadows. Or maybe he was just avoiding looking at me.

I knew what I had to say. I just wasn't sure he'd listen.

"Carth, we need to talk."

Jolee muttered something I didn't quite catch and started moving off, presumably to give us space.

"Hang on, Jolee. I might need your help here."

"Oh, no you don't. I'll be over here by this tree while you two have it out."

I didn't point out how unhelpful his description was, what with Kashyyyk practically being made of trees. I needed Jolee on my side—which was exactly why I'd asked him to stay in the first place. I wasn't anywhere near as attuned to him as I was to Bastila, but I could sense enough to know he didn't resent me in the least for what I'd said to the computer. In fact, I was willing to bet he'd caught on to my scheme, unlike the pilot who'd been around since day one and should have known better.

_There is no emotion_, I reminded myself. Normally I wasn't a big fan of that part of the code, but right now I needed it.

"Carth, you know I didn't mean what I said during that evaluation."

He finally stopped glaring vibrodaggers at the nearest kshyy vine, but unfortunately that meant he turned his glare on me instead. I told myself that was fine. At least he wasn't ignoring me.

"Do I?" he challenged me. "You're a master of telling everyone what they want to hear. How do I know you're feeding the computer a line and not me?"

"Carth, you've been with me since the beginning of this mess. I owe you my _life_. Why would I lie to you?"

He threw up his hands. "I don't know. I'm no Jedi. I don't know what's going on in your head. All I know is how enthusiasticyou sounded about all those civilian casualties spurring your troops on to victory. But then, I guess you see how well that works in practice every day, with me. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised."

My mouth hung open in disbelief.

"Carth, I would _never_ do that to anyone on purpose! The fact that I have a daily reminder of what it's done to you only makes me _more_ determined never to let it happen again! Can you really see me turning around and letting another city get wiped out like Taris, after I watched it go down in flames?"

He didn't even blink.

"I already told you: yes, I can. Saul did. Revan and Malak did, and so did all of their followers. They didn't originally set out to destroy the galaxy either, but that didn't stop them from changing their minds and turning on us."

I was really starting to hate all the people who had betrayed Carth in the past. They made my life so much more difficult.

"I'm notRevan and Malak, Carth."

I was starting to lose count of the number of times I'd said that. And if I was honest with myself, I wasn't sure why I bothered. If he still thought this badly of me after all the times I'd saved his skin, words weren't going to do any good.

"I know you aren't," he said with a sigh. "And I'm not saying you'll turn on us. I'm just saying I can't rule out the possibility."

"And what about the possibility that I'm telling you the truth? What if you're wrong?"

He actually considered that for a moment, though I didn't have high hopes for his response.

"Well… if the day comes when you can prove it, I guess I'll feel like a total bastard. But until then, I can't be too careful. I'm sorry."

That apology was like a spray bandage slapped on a knife wound to the heart—a nice afterthought, but not nearly enough to undo the damage.

I didn't even justify it with a response.

I turned away and started the long trek back to the basket that would take us topside. The tach scattered when they saw me coming, but Jolee, who had gone up the path a ways to wait, was just standing there, frozen. Judging by the look of mingled astonishment and dismay on his face, I was willing to bet he hadn't gone nearly far enough to get out of earshot—and was now regretting it. He stared at me as if he'd never seen me before. I didn't know what he saw, but I wasn't going to stick around to find out.

"Hold on just a second, missy," he said gruffly, taking my arm and forcing me to a halt as I tried to step past him. "You wait right here."

If it had been Carth giving the order, I would have refused. But it was Jolee. I may have known him for less than a day, but I was feeling much more benevolent toward him than my pilot, or even myself, at the moment.

However, that didn't mean I didn't have any misgivings regarding what he was up to. As I watched him mosey back down the path toward the computer and Carth, my anxiety got the better of me. I didn't want Carth to get hurt. I just wanted him to stop being a paranoid pain in the backside.

So I disobeyed the old Jedi and followed him—just far enough to hear what was going on while remaining out of sight. I had to get a lot closer to hear their conversation, since it involved a lot less shouting than mine had.

"That lass is the leader of this mad quest of yours, isn't she?" Jolee was saying.

I had to listen hard to catch Carth's "yes."

"And how do you expect her to focus on doing her job when she's worried about her own crew turning their backs on her?"

"I would never abandon our mission." Carth sounded more than a little offended by the question. "She knows that."

"Does she? I must have missed the part of the conversation where you said anything to indicate you have a loyal bone in your body."

I could feel Carth's shock that a virtual stranger was talking to him that way, and not just because I shared it. Up until that point, Jolee had made a point of staying out of our squabbles, and when he did offer up an actual opinion, it was usually in the guise of a rambling, pointless story. Why did he care so much whether my crew trusted me when he himself had forced me to undergo a test before he agreed to help?

I cut my speculation short when Carth finally answered.

"There's a difference between remaining loyal to someone and compromising your morals for them," he said with admirable self-control. I had to listen hard to hear the strain in his voice. "I don't want to fight with her, but I'm not going to sit back and let her take the wrong path just to avoid a confrontation."

"I never said you should," Jolee said calmly. "But let me ask you something. Do you really think alienating the lass by watching her like a wyyyschokk at every turn is going to make her any more inclined to stay on the right path?"

Carth was silent for a long moment, and when he did reply, it was hardly a reply at all.

"I just don't want to be blindsided if she does turn on us. Even if I can't do anything about it, I'd rather be prepared."

Jolee sighed.

"Preparing yourself for disappointment is all well and good," he said. "Hell, sometimes it seems like life is nothing _but_ disappointment, so I wouldn't presume to tell you you're a fool for taking the safe road. It's what I've been doing myself for the past twenty years, and it's cut just about all the nasty surprises out of my life. But if I've learned anything in all that time, son, it's that you can't judge a terentatek by its teeth."

"I'm sorry… what?" Carth asked. I couldn't have expressed my confusion any better myself. And I should have seen it coming, too. Up until that last sentence, Jolee's logic had been tracking suspiciously well. Part of me had to wonder whether that was the old man's point.

But the rest of me was still too busy trying to work out what the kriff he meant by the terentatek metaphor. Judging a huge, fanged, Jedi-killing monster by its razor-sharp teeth seemed perfectly reasonable to me, especially since you were probably about to be eaten if you were in any position to see them. And even if terentateks were tragically misunderstood creatures, as Jolee seemed to be claiming, what in space did that have to do with Carth and me? Unless Jolee was implying that _I_ was the huge, fanged, Jedi-killing monster that Carth wasn't supposed to judge, in which case I felt rather justified in taking offense.

I finally just gave up and turned my attention back to the hermit in hopes that he would explain. I was, of course, disappointed.

"How should I know what it means?" Jolee grumbled. "I didn't come up with the saying. I learned it from a man who got lost down here and stumbled across my hut moments before he became incoherent with delirium. Or maybe after. I just think it has a nice ring to it."

I thought it was total bantha poodoo, but I didn't say so. I didn't want them to know I was eavesdropping, and in the interest of preventing them from finding out, I decided it was high time I started creeping back toward the path where Jolee had left me. It sounded like the conversation was winding down anyway, and I'd heard what I needed to hear—and then some.

It wasn't more than a couple minutes before they joined me. Carth didn't look any happier than when I'd last seen him, but unless I was mistaken, he was more preoccupied than angry now. He kept staring at the forest floor.

Jolee, on the other hand, was as indecipherable as his advice and merely looked as if he'd been taking a casual stroll through the woods. That shouldn't have surprised me, but it was a little unsettling to know that if I hadn't been listening in, I would have thought nothing of any significance had transpired. I made a mental note to keep a closer eye on him in the future.

"Shall we get going?" the old man suggested. "If we stand here any longer, we'll start growing roots."

"Fine by me," I said. "Nothing else on this planet can be worse than that stupid evaluation."

But a few minutes later, Calo Nord made a liar out of me. When the alternative was fighting a very angry bounty hunter who could apparently survive being crushed by a collapsing roof in an explosion, lying low in the Shadowlands for a few decades suddenly didn't sound so bad—until I remembered that I'd be stuck down here with a paranoid pilot and a crazy old man for the rest of my life.

I ignited my lightsaber.


	7. What I Didn't Do

**What I Didn't Do**

* * *

**Author's Note:** This one skips ahead quite a lot again, and picks up the night after the Revan reveal.

**The _Ebon Hawk_**

* * *

I didn't stop her.

When Bastila threw herself between me and the man I still couldn't think of as my former Sith apprentice, all I could muster up was a reflexive "no." Carth managed to get a whole sentence of protest in before the door slammed shut and sealed us off from her, but by that point, it didn't make much difference.

I don't remember what I bellowed as I pounded uselessly on the door, but I do remember not putting up much of a fight as Carth dragged me away.

"We can't help her," he'd told me, his familiar brown eyes insistent—and sad. "Not here. We have to get to the Star Forge, or nothing else we've done will matter."

I didn't argue with that. I couldn't.

If Bastila's sacrifice was in vain, I would never forgive myself.

I didn't blame Carth for not forgiving me either. I wondered if he regretted having saved an escape pod for me the day the _Endar Spire_ went down. It was a cruel irony, to inadvertently save the life of the person who had destroyed yours.

I also couldn't help but wonder why Bastila _had_ abandoned me that day, knowing full well who I was and how important the information buried in my mind was to the survival of the Republic. Maybe part of her had regretted saving me the first time. If I ever saw her again, I didn't plan to ask.

There were a lot of things about my past I didn't want to know.

* * *

3 a.m. Republic Standard Time found me lying awake on my bunk, tucked safely away in the port dormitory of my battered little ship. I had hoped that after the emotional drain of today's events, I would be exhausted enough to fall asleep right away. Instead I just stared out the window next to me at the empty blackness of space.

I almost envied the vacuum. Out there was silence, stillness, the absence of emotion that the Jedi called peace. In here was a mess. The familiar hum of the _Ebon Hawk_'sengines wasn't nearly enough to drown out the soundtrack of the day's horrors as they replayed over and over in my mind. I could still hear Carth's screams when Saul Karath tortured him in an effort to make me talk. I could hear Malak's grating laugh, filtered through the voicebox in his metal jaw, when he realized I really didn't know who I was. I could hear Bastila's voice yelling for Carth and me to get out of there, the twin blades of her yellow lightsaber humming. I could hear the hatred in Carth's voice when he spat my name—my _real _name.

_Revan._ It echoed through my mind in countless different voices, some familiar, some not. I didn't know if the voices were merely conjurations of my imagination or fragments of memories of people I had known. All I knew was that I wanted them to stop.

Especially Carth's.

I rolled onto my other side, as if turning my back on the window would allow me to shut them out. The bunk creaked with my shift in weight. I hoped Mission and Juhani were truly asleep in the bunks on either side of mine, as they seemed to be, and not waiting to see if I was going to slit their throats under cover of darkness.

But that was unfair. Mission had been the first to support me when I broke the news of my real identity to everyone, and I already knew how enamored Juhani was with my former self. They were the last people I had to worry about.

Actually, that title probably went to HK or Canderous. I didn't know how I'd accumulated so many Revan-worshippers in such a small crew, but it was rather convenient, all things considered. If only the person whose opinion I cared about most wasn't the one who had told me in no uncertain terms how much he would love to put a blaster to Revan's head. I knew better than to think Carth would ever trust me again. And after all the progress we'd made…

I didn't allow myself to indulge in self-pity for more than a moment. I counted to ten, and then I let it go, as a Jedi should. Bastila would have been proud. _Would_ be proud, I corrected myself.

She was still alive—at least for the time being. I could sense that much, which was why I was still marginally sane. And if Malak hadn't killed her by now, he must have had other plans for her. I tried not to imagine what those could be, but with every passing hour and every parsec we put between us and her, it was becoming increasingly difficult not to let my mind wander down that dark path.

I didn't want to think about it.

I didn't want to think about much of anything. But I didn't know how to stop either.

I wondered whether HK would drug me into unconsciousness if I ordered him to. Sleep clearly wasn't coming, and without the option of leaving the ship, it would be difficult to pass the time without waking the others. There was always the option of meditating, but it had never sounded less appealing than it did right now.

I decided to do it anyway. It was what Bastila would have recommended.

I swung my legs around and slowly lowered my feet to the cold metal floor. My footfalls barely made a sound as I picked my way down the silent corridor toward the cargo hold.

I didn't notice Canderous sitting on the piece of junk that passed for a food synthesizer until it was too late.

"Good morning," he said gruffly. He didn't even glance up from the blaster he was polishing. "I thought you might still be up."

"Why are _you_ up?" I rubbed at my eyes. Whatever he was using on his blaster was potent enough to make them sting.

"Just making sure you don't do anything stupid." His steel-grey eyes never left his work.

"Like what?"

He finally glanced up at me, and judging by his furrowed eyebrows, it was to try to discern whether I was joking or just a moron.

"Are you telling me killing the Dark Lord never crossed your mind?"

I had already opened my mouth to point out what a stupid question that was, considering it was the point of our entire mission, when I realized he wasn't talking about Darth Malak.

He was talking about me.

Something inside me plunged all the way down to my toes, which felt considerably chillier than they had a moment ago.

"And what good would that do?" I had to force myself to meet his eyes. "We still have a mission. The fact that I used to be Malak's best friend doesn't change the fact that he has to be stopped."

I folded my arms across my chest, hoping it made me look more confident, more insulted that he would even ask such a question. But while the honest answer was no, I hadn't entertained any notions of suicide, I was beginning to wonder whether someone in our crew was expecting me to. Or hoping I would.

No, Carth couldn't hate me_ that_ much. I felt like a drama queen for even letting the thought cross my mind. But then I realized how arrogant it was to think there was anything I could do that would ever outweigh killing his wife and leaving his homeworld in ruins. Dustil had grown up without his father and joined the Sith—_my_ Sith—because of what I'd done to Telos. It didn't even matter that Malak was the one who actually led the attack, rather than me. I'd be deluding myself if I clung to a hope that he and Saul Karath hadn't done so on my orders, and I was pretty sure Carth would agree with me on that point.

It had broken my heart to hear him accuse me of ruining his life, but I couldn't find it in me to protest. I couldn't judge him for his trust issues or his obsession with revenge anymore, knowing it was my fault he'd turned out this way. It was only fair that I should have to face the consequences of my actions.

Or it would have been, if I were still the same person who had done any of it.

"I don't suppose there's any way I can convince you not to give a damn what Carth thinks of you," Canderous said.

"Not likely. You might as well try to—"

I stopped short, backtracking in my mind to figure out when I had mentioned Carth out loud. I was pretty certain I hadn't.

"What, you think the whole ship doesn't know that's what's bothering you?" Canderous gave another disparaging shake of his head and went back to polishing his blaster.

I Force-lifted the gun out of his hands and caught it lightly in mid-air. He neither protested nor made a move to take it back. He simply watched me in annoyance as I sat down on the floor and started tinkering. The blaster was in impeccable condition, of course. I wouldn't have expected any less from a Mandalorian warrior. It was just my natural reaction to anything mechanical—and it made it easier to have this conversation. Anything that divided some part of my mind from the topic I didn't want to face was welcome.

"So what's it like?" I asked. "Finding out that the great Revan has been reduced to a silly girl who can't even stomach one Republic soldier's dislike." Anyone watching would have thought I was asking the question of the weapon in my hands. "It's just that I know you looked up to the person I used to—"

Canderous snatched the gun away from me, and without thinking, I looked up.

"—be."

The Mandalorian's face could have been carved from stone. For a few tense seconds, I thought he was going to use the blaster to bash my head in.

"I respected Revan, yes," he said. "She was the greatest warrior your Republic had to offer, and she crushed even the best of the Mandalorians in our final battle over Malachor."

Though my skull remained intact, something about that slow, deliberate cadence to his speech reeked of danger. I decided right then never to piss him off again.

"But the person I looked up to was the nobody of a soldier who was resourceful enough to outwit one of the toughest gangs on Taris, and reckless enough to charge into a base full of Sith and race on a deathtrap of a machine in order to get things done. I couldn't figure out why anyone would be crazy enough to try to pull a stunt like that, but five minutes of seeing her in action told me all I needed to know."

He leaned toward me, and his grey-eyed stare went, if anything, even harder.

"She wasn't crazy. This was someone who had what it takes. Someone who could have the Republic in the palm of her hand if she wanted to, and would do a hell of a lot better leading it. Someone I would be proud to fight for—and die for— because there could be no greater honor."

I was speechless, floundering for any kind of response to that kind of… compliment. The word hardly seemed sufficient to describe the intensity with which he had spoken.

At my reaction, Canderous's face twisted into something I would have labeled a smug grin if I didn't know better. He leaned back again, sitting back down on the synthesizer and examining his blaster as if to check that I hadn't screwed anything up. It was an action so totally out of sync with the words he'd just said that I couldn't help but suspect he was doing precisely what I had done—avoiding having to look at me.

"Hey," I said. To my surprise, he actually looked up. "Thanks."

His lip curled.

"Don't sweat it, Jedi. I'm not trying to flatter anyone. I just say what I know."

"Well, you didn't have to say anything at all, so I'm thanking you anyway."

His only response was a grunt.

I don't know what made me do it, if it was the offhand way he was trying to play it off as if the whole conversation hadn't happened, or the unexpected sincerity of his pledge of loyalty coming when I so badly needed someone to validate this fictitious persona that was the only self I knew. Or maybe I simply wanted to get even for that smug grin of his when he caught me so completely off-guard. Maybe it was all of the above.

I stooped and planted a kiss on his battle-scarred temple before walking away.

I didn't look back. I didn't need to. Through the Force, I could feel the wave of shock that hit him like a brick wall, clear as a sunny day on Tatooine.

And for the first time since I'd found out I was a Dark Lord of the Sith, I grinned.

* * *

Looking back, I guess there were a lot of ways things could have gone that night. After all, I had just found out my entire life was a lie. I could have quite justifiably fallen to pieces, or refused to continue doing the bidding of an Order that had stolen my identity. I could have run away. I could have fallen. I could have offed myself.

But I didn't.

Instead I crept back into the dormitory I shared with Mission and Juhani and sat down on the floor, legs crossed, listening to the soft sound of their breathing as I reached out with my mind for Bastila.

Elsewhere on the ship, a Mandalorian was cursing indignantly to himself, and a Republic pilot was lying awake, still unable to come to terms with the blow he'd been dealt.

But Carth would either come around or he wouldn't.

Either way, I was going to make sure I was the kind of person he'd be an idiot to hold a grudge against forever.

I was going to find Bastila and bring her home, no matter what it took. I was going to make sure a teenage Twi'lek's faith in me was rewarded. I was going to put an end to Malak's bloody conquest and leave the Jedi Masters wondering why they had never given Sith Lords a second chance before.

And damn it, I was going to earn that speech of Canderous's before I either saved the Republic or went out in a blaze of glory trying.


End file.
